F 




"THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, 



ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BY 

Honorable HENRY B. F. MACFARLAND, 

PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS 
OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, 



DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA DAY, SEPTEMBER THIRD, 

NINETEEN HUNDRED AND ONE, 

AT THE 

PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION, 
BUFFALO, N. Y. 



Published 

BY THE 

Committee of Arrangements. 
1901. 




Pass "F \^-^ 

Book. ■ hk ^ "^x 



"THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, 



ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BY 




Honorable HENRY B: F. MACFARLAND, 



PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS 
OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, 



DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA DAY, SEPTEMBER THIRD, 

NINETEEN HUNDRED AND ONE, 

AT THE 

PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION, 
BUFFALO, N. Y. 



Published 

BY THI'. 

Committee of Arrangements. 
1901, 



i 
I 






©ommij6>i1oncr,o of the Jli.&tvict of (iToUimbin 

HENRY B. F. MACFAKLAND, 

President. 

JOHN W. ROSS. 

CAPTAIN LANSING H. BEACH, 
Corps of Engineers, United States Army. 



a^ommiiitt of givrnHnftttf»tiSi : Washlngton'raria 



John W. Douglass, Chairman. 
L. G. HiNE, M. M. Pakker, 

Geokge Truesdell, John B. Wight, 

Matthew G. Emeky, John Joy Edson, 

Mitchell Bykenforth, Theodore W. Noyes, 
Walter S. Hutchins, John F. Wilkins. 



Ilottotarj) ^ia-^uMtnt^ of tlic ^an-gimcnnut (!^x\mition 
tax tltc §i^ixki of (filohimbia: 

John W. Douglass, L. G. Hine. 



^^tcmbrvjs fot the gisitnct of (Columbia of i\\t "^oixxA of 
^atlj) PattJtjjctjS!, fatt-i^mcticatt (JExiJOi&itiou : 

Mrs. Mary F. Henderson, Miss Isobel Lenman. 



District of Columbia Day at the Pan-American Exposi- 
tion was successfully celebrated on September 3, 1901, 
under the direction of the Committee of Arrangements ap- 
pointed by the Commissioners of the District of Columbia. 
At ten o'clock the Commissioners, accompanied by the 
Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements, and escorted 
by a detachment of United States Marines, a company of 
the National Guard of the District of Columbia, and the 
United States Marine Band, entered the grounds at the 
Lincoln gateway and drove to the United States Govern- 
ment building, which had been appointed as their head- 
quarters for the day. From eleven to twelve o'clock they 
held a reception in the center of the Government building, 
which was largely attended. The Marino Band furnished a 
program of music. At two o'clock exercises were held in 
the Temple of Music, which was filled with people through- 
out the program. The Chairman of the Committee of 
Arrangements, Honorable John W. Douglass, presided, and 
addresses were made by Honorable W. I. Buchanan, 
Director-General of the Exposition, and Honorable Henry 
B. F. Macfarland, President of the Board of Commissioners 
of the District of Columbia. The Marine Band played a 
number of selections. Mr. Macfarland's address follows. 



THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 



Tbo Capital of the United States of America brings greet- 
ing to-claj to the Pan-American Exposition of the first year 
of the twentieth century. The District of Cokimbia, home 
of the United States Government, seated in the city planned 
by Washington, and which bears his name, offers its con- 
gratulations to the managers of this Exposition, and to the 
men and women of Buffalo who made it possible, upon the 
success which they have achieved. Congratulations have 
come, or will come, from every State in the Union, from 
every one of our sister republics, and from the Dominion 
of Canada, but none, we flatter ourselves, can be more signifi- 
cant than those which come from the ofiicial heart of the 
United States of America, where the feelings of all the peo- 
ple of our Union are gathered up and expressed together. 
The District of Columbia is highly honored in having this 
day set apart by the Exposition for its benefit, but it can 
make some return in delivering to the Exposition the essence 
of the good will and felicitations of our country. Indeed, 
as the oldest republican capital on this continent, it may, 
without presumption, claim the honor to speak at least 
for all its younger relatives, the capitals of the republics 
south of us, including the youngest republic of this hemi- 
sphere, Cuba, which comes into independence with the open- 
ing of the twentieth century. George Washington was the 
example of the heroes who liberated and founded those 
republics, and they naturally looked, and looked not in 
vain, to the capital which he founded for that sympathy and 
support which they could not hope for in any other capital 
the great world round. In the city of Washington, in the 
District of Columbia, they found what they had a right to 
expect, recognition and consideration, without condescension 
or intimidation, courtesy as disinterested as is ever found 
among men. They misread history who see in the dealings 



of the United States of America with the other republics of 
this hemisphere anything inconsistent with the character of 
the elder brother. From the time that they established 
their independence the earlier republics had the friendship 
of the earliest republic, and it has been almost alwa5'S gen- 
erously shown in considerate ways. 

It was in the District of Columbia that John Quincy 
Adams, following out George Washington's thought, for- 
mulated the principle which President Monroe announced, 
and to which his name was given. It has never been in- 
voked except for the benefit of this continent, and it will 
never be employed for the wanton injury of any power be- 
yond the seas, much less to the damage of any country be- 
tween the Atlantic and Pacific. It is a doctrine of peace 
and not of war, except as war may sometimes be necessar}' 
to gain peace, and it can never be rightfully used except on 
this basis. To keep the peace of this continent has alwa3'S 
been a desire of our country. 

It was in the District of Columbia that John Quincy 
Adams and Henry Clay, in eloquent language, first set forth 
the noble principles of the relations which the United States 
desired with the new-born republics, in their efforts to se- 
cure representation of the United States at the first Con- 
gress of American Republics at Panama — efi'orts which, 
though injured by partisan opposition, were crowned with 
success, although it came too late to be of practical impor- 
tance. It was in the District of Columbia that after the 
lapse of more than half a century another Congress of 
American Republics, greater than that of Panama, as the 
republics themselves had become greater, met, upon the 
invitation of the United States of America and drew together 
the States of North and South America in closer ties than 
they had ever known before. It was at the opening of that 
Congress, the precursor of this Exposition and of the Con- 
gress which is about to meet in the City of Mexico, that 
Secretary Blaine expressed the deep thought of the Ameri- 
can people when he said : 



" We believe that hearty co-operation, based on hearty 
coDlidence, will save all American States from the burdens 
and evils which have long and crnelly afflicted the older 
nations of the world. 

" We believe that a spirit of justice, of common and equal 
interest between the American States, will leave no room 
for an artificial balance of power like unto that which has 
led to wars abroad, and drenched Europe in blood. 

"We believe that friendship, avowed with candor and 
maintained with good faith, will remove from American 
States the necessity of guarding boundary lines between 
themselves with fortifications and military force. 

" We believe that standing armies, beyond those which 
are needful for public order and the safety of internal ad- 
ministration, should be unknown on both American conti- 
nents. 

" We believe that friendship and not force, the spirit of just 
law and not the violence of the mob, should be the recog- 
nized rule of administration between American nations and 
in American nations." 

Arbitration as a means of preventing war has been 
prominent in the gospel of our country, and it was with 
peculiar satisfaction that we heard Secretary Blaine say, in 
closing the Pan-American Congress of 1889, in Washington : 

" If, in this closing hour, the conference had but one deed 
to celebrate, we should dare call the world's attention to the 
deliberate, confident, solemn dedication of two great conti- 
nents to peace, and to the prosperity which has peace for its 
foundation. We hold up this new magna charta which 
abolishes war and substitutes arbitration between the Ameri- 
can republics, as the first and great fruit of the International 
American Conference. That noblest of Americans, the aged 
poet and philanthropist, Whittier, is the first to send his salu- 
tation and his benediction, declaring : 

" ' If, in the spirit of peace, the American Conference agrees 
upon a rule of arbitration which shall make war in this 
hemisphere well nigh impossible, its sessions will prove one 
of the most important events in the history of the world.' " 

The District of Columbia has been the scene of many 



other eflforts and negotiations, having the same objects as 
the Pan-American Congress of 1889. 

It has also been the scene of many efforts and negotia- 
tions, in part successful, intended to secure closer and more 
cordial relations between the United States and our great 
neighbor on the north, who must be included, as here, in 
any real Pan-American project. In spite of all that selfish 
politicians, prompted by no less selfish business men, have 
done to keep the United States and the Dominion of Canada 
apart, they have inevitably, under natural laws that cannot 
be affected by treaties or enactments, been brought closer 
together in personal and commercial intercourse, which now 
makes the very thought of war between them seem, even here, 
near the battle grounds of the war of 1812, incredible if not 
impossible. It was the treaty of Washington, pre-eminently 
entitled to that name, which, providing for the greatest ar- 
bitration of history between two of the greatest nations of 
history, proclaimed the international principles of the United 
States and removed the last real danger of war with Great 
Britain which we shall ever see. 

Peace on earth among men of good will, peace with honor, 
though not peace at any price, this is and has always been 
the choice of the American people, who do not love war for 
war's sake, and who do not thirst for its conquests or its 
glories. That brotherhood of men which is only possible 
because of the fatherhood of God is dear to them. That 
friendliness for all other nations, without entangling alli- 
ances with any of them, which George Washington preached, 
has been the heart of the people's desire ever since, even 
when the war spirit rose high or when actual war was on. 
Nothing is further from the truth than any representation 
of the United States as an Uncle Sam going around with a 
chip on his shoulder, making faces at foreigners and breath- 
ing out threatenings against them. On the contrary, the 
disposition of the United States is to endure patiently as 
long as possible whatever wrongs may be put upon it, and to 



9 

seek a remedy by peaceful means. And it is less and less 
disposed to brag and bluster as it attains greater power and 
therefore greater self respect. This very Exposition, like 
those which have preceded it, manifests the spirit of the 
American people, devoted to the competitions of peace. 
Proud of its Army and Navy, proud of their achieve- 
ments and those of the citizen soldiery supplementing the 
regular forces, it looks upon them as a means of defense 
and not of offense, and for the exceptional emergencies, 
and not the ordinary life of the nation. 

Nowhere is the national, or the international, feeling of 
the United States of America so strong or so clearly ex- 
pressed as in the District of Columbia, where the repre- 
sentatives and the citizens of all the States and Territories 
meet and contribute to the population ; where the National 
Government carries on its operations ; where the President, 
through the Secretary of State, conducts the negotiations 
respecting its foreign relations with the Ambassadors and 
Ministers of all the other Governments who are permanently 
resident in Washington. The very purpose of the founders 
of the District of Columbia was to make it national, and 
even cosmopolitan — removed from local and provincial feel- 
ings and influences — and its development has more and more 
gratified their desire. 

It will be remembered that the far-seeing genius of George 
Washington first perceived the necessity for such a capital. 
He had seen the Eevolutionary capital and that of the Con- 
federation which followed the Eevolution moving about from 
place to place in ephemeral and undignified fashion ; he 
had seen the Congress of the Confederation flee from its 
place in Philadelphia in 1783 before the onslaught of a 
mob of the ill-requited soldiers of the Eevolution. He had 
determined then that the people of the United States needed 
not only a more perfect union, but a more perfect capital in 
a Federal district which would give it security and sanctity 
it could not have in any place temporarily loaned by one of 



10 

V 

the States. Other mon boj^an to see it too. It was felt 
that the dignity as well as the safety and, therefore, the 
perpetuity of the National Government that Avas to come 
into bcinf; with the new Constitution demanded that it 
should have a seat of its own under its own authority, and 
where it could not be encroached upon by any disturbing 
influences. Accordingly, in the Constitution of 1789, pro- 
vision was made for a Federal district ten miles square, over 
which Congress should have exclusive jurisdiction. Then 
came the consideration in Congress of the important ques- 
tion of where the Federal district should be placed. Natu- 
rally, different sections and different States desired it. It 
was seen that it could not be given to New England or to 
the extreme South, but every State in between considered 
itself eligible, and most of them tried to get it, offering in 
some cases even their State capitals for the national use. 
The contest in Congress over the selection of a place be- 
came excited and at times so bitter that some felt that the 
break-up of the Union, which all feared as possible before 
its thin ties could be made unbreakable, might come 
over the placing of the Federal district. Congress made 
several tentative selections and one, in Pennsylvania, that was 
apparently definitive, but all were reconsidered, and it seemed 
as though the controversy might go on indefinitely when the 
famous compromise was reached by which the South got the 
Federal district, in consideration of its acquiescence in the 
desire of the North for the assumption by the nation of the 
Revolutionary debts of the States. It was as natural as it 
was admirable that the choice of the precise location for the 
Federal district on the Potomac river, for one hundred miles 
from Williamsport southward, was left to George Washing- 
ton, who knew the whole region thoroughly, and was more 
interested in the success of the plan than any other man 
for he had not only the eye of the surveyor but the eye of 
the seer, and selected a site not only with regard to its 
beauty, its convenience, and its adaptability, but to the 



11 

future of the nation. It was well that he was also en- 
trusted with the preparation of the Federal city within 
the Federal district, for he laid it out, with the assist- 
ance of Thomas Jefferson, the leader of the other school 
of statesmen, and of the surveyors, L'Enfant and Ellicott, 
with the eye of faith which saw the United States of to-day 
as no other man of his time began to see it. It is hard to 
realize now that no one saw then as Washington did the 
United States of a century later, bound together in a Union 
that cannot be broken, a mighty nation, spread not only across 
the continent but across the seas, and whose future greatness 
no man can limit. Washington thought with breadth and depth 
that distinguished him from the other fathers of this Repub- 
lic, and nowhere does this appear more clearly than on the 
map of the Federal city, as Washington called it, although 
inevitably it was called by his name by everyone else, and 
finally by Congress. As we look at that plan, whose scope 
and detail are now admired by the greatest experts as the 
best possible for the purpose, we see Washington's confi- 
dence in the future of the nation which he had brought into 
the world. It is difficult for us to realize how puny that nation 
appeared to foreigners ; how weak and unpromising to many 
of its own citizens; so that the magnificent project of 
Washington for the Federal city seemed to them, alike in 
its unparalleled grandeur and symmetry, a thing for ridicule. 
The serene Washington, who faced laughter as he faced 
cannon, did not change his project, which is still the 
working plan for the city of Washington to this day. 
Washington not only selected the site of the Federal dis- 
trict and planned the Federal city, but he also directed 
the arrangements under which Maryland and Virginia gave 
to the United States the jurisdiction over the territory for the 
District of Columbia, as Congress called the Federal district 
in memory of Columbus, and personally conducted the negoti- 
ations with the nineteen owners of the land, mostly cut up into 
farms, on which the city of Washington was to be built. He 



12 

included on the Maryland side of the Potomac, in the 
larger portion of the District, sixty-nine out of the one hun- 
dred square miles, the city of Georgetown, founded by 
Scotch and English in 1751, and on the Virginia side of the 
Potomac his own home town of Alexandria, both towns 
then ambitious and hopeful of commercial greatness, which 
Washington himself sought to bring to them by the Chesa- 
peake and Ohio Canal, designed to connect the East with 
the country beyond the mountains, then called the West. 
But the Federal city he placed ou the map between Rock 
Creek, the eastern boundary of Georgetown, on the west, 
and the Anacostia river on the east, with the Potomac as 
the southern boundary. The National Government was 
poor as well as weak. It could not afford to buy out the 
original proprietors. It could not afford to put up the 
necessary buildings for its own use. Therefore, in the de- 
cade from 1790 to 1800, given to Washington for the prepa- 
ration of the National Capital, he had to arrange with the 
owners to make them stockholders, in a sense, in the na- 
tional city, by securing their donations of more than half of 
the land to the National Government, in consideration of 
the enhanced value which would accrue to the land which 
they kept. Then, with ample reservations of land for 
avenues, streets, and parks, some of the rest was sold on the 
Government account as building lots to raise funds for 
buildings in connection with appropriations of money made 
by Maryland and Virginia. Washington, who in this form- 
ative period had to overcome many diflficulties, at last, just 
before his untimely death in 1799, saw his work so well 
done that it could not be undone, and derived from it a 
pleasure which nothing else except his successes in the 
Revolution and in the adoption of the Constitution had 
yielded to him. 

But although the Federal district had been established 
and the Federal city had been laid out on paper, the gen- 
eral appearance of the farms that stretched from the low 



13 

hills in the north of the district down to the fishing ham- 
lets on the shore of the Potomac, showed very little change 
when, in 1800, the National Government slowly removed 
from Philadelphia to Washington. The Executive Mansion, 
which was of the same size, but not of the same color as 
to-day, and the old Capitol building, one-third the size of 
that of to-day, were the only important new structures, 
although buildings for the small executive departments of 
that time had been constructed and a number of dwellint? 
houses with a few small hotels and boarding-houses. Penn- 
sylvania avenue was rather plainly marked as a road be- 
tween the Capitol and the Executive Mansion, and a few 
other avenues and streets in the southern and central por- 
tion of the young city were traced through the groves and 
pastures in a similar way. 

The population of "Washington in the year 1800, when the 
National Government had become established in it, was less 
than four thousand, Georgetown having less than three thou- 
sand, Alexandria nearly five thousand, while there were 
nearly three thousand in the rest of the District. The total 
population of the District was 14,093, including 2,072 
slaves. 

The National Government was a small body of men and 
its business was comparatively small in amount. The nation 
itself was felt to be still an experiment, and it was not re- 
garded as certain that there would continue to be a National 
Government or a National Capital. Chief Justice Marshall, 
however, took his seat on the Supreme Bench in February, 
1801, and began, in that masterly series of decisions, to draw 
out of the new Constitution the powers for a mighty National 
Government which could never be broken, except by revolu- 
tion. While that great statesman in the robes of a jurist 
was thus carrying George Washington's ideas into practical 
and permanent effect, the National Government continued 
to be so poor that it was not able to build up and improve 
the Federal city as Washington had intended. And even 



14 

as the nation grew in wealth and power, and larger measures 
of both came to the National Government, it continued to 
leave the improvement of the city of Washington, and all 
the rest of the District of Columbia, practically to the peo- 
ple who lived in it. For seventy years Congress did not 
give the District of Columbia even a form of government, 
although Washington was given what Georgetown and 
Alexandria had of municipal government by Mayor and 
Councils. In that time Congress spent ninety millions 
of dollars in constructing buildings and other conveniences 
for the business of the Government in the District of 
Columbia, but, with what seems like neglect of the in- 
terests of the Capital, it left the burden of general improve- 
ments and the maintenance of the local governments largely 
to the inhabitants of the District. It was not, perhaps, 
intentional neglect. It was undoubtedly caused at first by 
the comparative poverty of the National Government, and 
afterwards the very conditions resulting prevented that pride 
and interest which ought to have been taken in the National 
Capital. 

Then, too, it was not until after the Civil War that it was 
finally settled that the National Capital would not be moved 
from the District of Columbia. It had hardly been estab- 
lished there before agitation for its removal began, first on 
the part of those who were dissatisfied with it as a place of 
residence, and afterwards by those who desired for other 
places the honor and advantage of having the National Capi- 
tal. As the expansion of the country, begun by Washington 
and Jefferson, proceeded westward over the Alleghenies and 
beyond the Mississippi, and it became apparent that it 
might go on until the Pacific was reached, the men of the 
West began to murmur because the National Capital was on 
the eastern edge of the continent, and communication with 
it was slow and difficult. The railroad and the telegraph 
were removing the only substantial reason for a change, when 
the Civil War made a change impossible by hallowing the 



15 

District of Columbia with the sentiments of sacrifice and 
glory. It Jjjul not been improved as Washington desired. 
The city of Washington had not been made beautiful. It 
was still unkempt and neglected in its general aspects, but 
great armies of the best and bravest of the North and South 
had fought to possess it, and many thousands of them had 
poured out their life-blood for it. The hundreds of thou- 
sands of men who marched through it to the battle-fields all 
around it, felt a new interest in it, and those who survived 
and returned to their homes all over the Union communicated 
that interest to their relatives and friends. In these days of 
travel it is hard to realize how few Americans had visited 
Washington before the war, and therefore how dim and 
shadowy the National Capital seemed to the people of the 
country. But the National Capital, like the National Gov- 
ernment, became intensely real and intensely precious to the 
men and women whose dear ones went to battle for it, and 
after the success of the Union armies had given a new mean- 
ing to both the Government and the Capital, the suggestion 
of giving the Government a new home met only with ridi- 
cule. The greatest captain of the war, the General of the 
triumphant armies, shared the new interest in the old capi- 
tal, for which he had probably cared very little, like most of 
his fellow-citizens, before the war. When General Grant 
became President of the United States in 1869, he came into 
close official relations with the District of Columbia, and it 
was easy for the leader of its more progressive citizens, a 
remarkable man whose vigor and ability impressed General 
Grant, to enlist his support for an effort to carry into effect 
the long-neglected plans of George Washington for the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. Fortunately for the District, its natural 
leader and the large majority of both houses of Congress 
were of the same political party as the President of the 
United States, and that party, which also controlled the 
Supreme Court, still had the confidence of the majority of 
the people as the saviour of the Union. This made it possi- 



16 

ble to ilo iu a vory short time remarkable work for th« bet- 
terment of the District of Columbia. First of all, it was 
given a government. Congress, under the Constitution, had 
legislated for it in a haphazard way for the most part, al- 
though it had given it a judicial system at the beginning of 
the century, and a metropolitan police system at the begin- 
ning of the Civil War. But in 1871 it gave the District a 
territorial form of government, with a Governor, appointed 
by the President, and a legislature and a delegate in Con- 
gress, elected by the people, who still retained the right of 
suffrage which they had formerly exercised in voting for the 
municipal officers of the cities in the District. Alexandria 
had been lost to the District when Virginia took back, in 
184C, the strip of territory which it had donated on 
the south side of the Potomac ; and in 1871 the cities 
of Washington and Georgetown gave up their munici- 
pal governments, and from that time on they have had no 
other government than that of the District of Columbia, so 
that the city of Washington, which now comprehends also 
the former city of Georgetown, is the only city in the world 
which has no government of its own. 

The government of the District of Columbia, controlled 
by the one masterful spirit, proceeded to improve the city of 
Washington by opening up, grading, and paving avenues 
and streets all over it, according to Washington's plan. 
The valleys were filled up with the hills. The work was 
done on a grand scale, and all over the city at once, so that 
when it had once been begun it was easier to go on and 
finish it than to try to undo it. Suddenly and generally the 
ploughshare of progress was driven roughly but skillfully in 
all sections of the city. Naturally, there was bitter and ardent 
protest from property owners who preferred the old conditions 
to the increased taxation of the new. But for the time being 
the new force at work was irresistible, and before it could 
be checked it had started the new Washington, and had 
made it impossible to go backwards. All that the reactionary 



17 

forces could do, aided hj a political change in Congress and 
the panic of 1873, was to halt the march of improvement 
'■^""■aBd'Change the form of government. Although the charges 
of corruption and thievery, which were so freely made, 
were not established in the Congressional investigation that 
followed, and though the general results of what was done 
under the territorial government were accepted as on the 
whole beneficial, although it took years to make some see it, 
the tax-payers of the District generally were satisfied by 
their experiences that they wanted no more of the electoral 
franchise under the apparently unchangeable condition of 
universal manhood sufl:rage, and therefore they induced Con- 
gress, in 1874, to provide for the government of the Dis- 
trict without suffrage by a temporary board of three Com- 
missioners, which was to prepare the way for a permanent 
government by Commissioners. At the same time Congress 
was brought to acknowledge for the first time its financial 
obligations to the District of Columbia in view of the fact 
that the title to more than one-half of the real estate was 
in the United States, and the National Government was 
receiving the full benefit of all municipal services. Con- 
gress promised that under the new government by Com- 
missioners it would pay half the expenses of the District, 
the other half to be paid by the citizens who had thereto- 
fore borne the whole burden. Congress also, in considera- 
tion of the authority it had given the territorial government 
to borrow money for the extraordinary expenses of improve- 
ment, gave the guarantee of the United States for the pay- 
ment of the principal and interest of the bonds issued on 
that account. In fulfillment of its promises. Congress, in 
1878, passed the act which the Supreme Court of the United 
States has termed "the Constitution of the District of 
Columbia," giving it a permanent government by three Com- 
missioners, to be appointed by the President of the United 
States, who exercise all the executive power and to whom 
is also delegated a certain legislative authority to make reg- 



18 

Illations enforcible by ponalties for the public safety, health, 
aud comfort — a uuique grant to an executive government. In 
the same act runs the provision for the division of the ex- 
penses of the District of Columbia half-and-half between the 
United States and the District of Columbia. Twenty-three 
years experience has proved that this is the ideal form of 
government for the District of Columbia. This is attested 
by the fact that there is no probability that it will be ma- 
terially changed at any time in the future. The fact that it 
is an exception to all other governments in the United 
States in that it provides for taxation without representa- 
tion, and is autocratic in form, grieves some good people in 
the District who care more for sentiment than for substance, 
and grieves others who would like to take advantage of the 
untoward conditions which the restoration of the suffrage 
would inevitably produce. But the people of the District of 
Columbia generally believe that they have the best form of 
government possible for them, and if any serious attempt 
were made to change it it would be overwhelmingly de- 
feated. They know that the absence of partisan politics in 
the District of Columbia has made its government purely a 
matter of business, and that it has been carried on with ab- 
solute honesty, with conspicuous efficiency and economj', 
and in accordance with its official motto, " Justitia omnibus." 
There has been no suspicion of mal-administration, of cor- 
ruption, or of blackmail. The Commissioners and the other 
officers of the government of the District of Columbia, in- 
variably, have had the confidence and support of all that is 
best in the community. Under the organic act of 1878, 
two of the Commissioners are to be residents of the 
District of Columbia, and the third is to be an officer of high 
rank in the army corps of engineers, the civilians serving for 
three years, the engineer commissioner having no fixed term, 
but, as a rule, serving for a shorter period. Under the 
unwritten law of custom, the President always chooses the 
civilians from different political parties, and one of them has 



19 

always been a lawyer, though the law requires only that they 
shall be residents of the District. Their recommendations 
of legislation and appropriations are the, basis for the annual 
action of Congress, and Congress, through its committees, 
consults the Commissioners about all measures affecting the 
District, and commonly follows the advice of the Commis- 
sioners. The annual budget of the Commissioners amounts 
now, in round numbers, to about $9,000,000, which has to 
be appropriated in detail by Congress, half from the national 
Treasury, half from the District revenues, and all the accounts 
of the District, because of the national participation, are 
audited, not only by the Auditor of the District, but by the 
United States Treasury Department. Accounts that pass 
such scrutiny could not long be dishonest, even if there 
were dishonest men in the Government of the District. 

This unique Government would not have continued, and 
would not have been successful, had it not been in fact more 
responsive to public opinion than any other in North or 
South America. Self government of the most direct and 
effective character is the possession of the people of the 
District of Columbia. The President has always chosen as 
Commissioners men whose character and abilities gave them 
the support of their fellow citizens, and the Commissioners 
and Congress have always welcomed every expression of 
the public will. The government of the District of Columbia 
is, therefore, admittedly the best in the United States, be- 
cause it is a government by the best citizens, with partisan 
politics, the professional politician and the municipal jobber 
absolutely eliminated. The District of Columbia desires to 
exhibit at the Pan-American Exposition its form of gov- 
ernment as its best and most characteristic product, which 
cannot be duplicated for honesty and efficiency. Under 
this government it is becoming the most beautiful capital 
in the world, and has doubled its population and wealth. 

In the celebration, on the 12th of last December, of the 
centennial anniversary of the founding of the District of 



20 

Columbia, the speakers at the Executive Mansiou and at the 
Capitol showed that the District of Columbia had held its 
own in the progress of the nineteenth century. It had not 
become the " commercial emporium " of the first order for 
which George Washington hoped, any more than it had be- 
come the homo of the national university of which he 
dreamed, and for which he made a large bequest. Yet it 
has an economic and commercial development which sur- 
prises even its own inhabitants with every census, and it 
has room and special facilities, without endangering the 
peculiar advantages of Washington as a residence city, for 
the large expansion of manufacturing enterprises, while it 
has become a university centre with twenty-five hundred 
collegiate students, and, besides its colleges, possesses those 
great mines for scientific research, the Government libraries 
and collections with a million volumes and thousands of 
scientific treasures, which are now to be made more accessible 
than ever to the graduate student. 

But the distinction of the District of Columbia lies in the 
fact that it is more than a commercial or a collegiate centre — 
more, even, than a place of scientific research. It is the 
National Capital, the home of the National Government, the 
official residence of the President, his Cabinet, the Supreme 
Court, the Congress, and the Ambassadors and Ministers of 
all the other governments of the world accredited to the 
United States. This is, and ought to be, and always will 
be, its distinctive glory. It had this at its beginning a hun- 
dred years ago, when President John Adams announced 
formally to Congress the transfer of the seat of Government 
to its borders. Even then it had that fine society which it 
has always had since, and that noble life, full of interest 
and culture, of high pursuits and great affairs. It has not 
the most polyglot population, but it has the most cosmopoli- 
tan interests in the United States. All the Presidents ex- 
cept George Washington, and all their Cabinet officers, all 
the Chief Justices from John Marshall down, and all their 



21 

associates in the Supreme Court, all the Vice-Presidents 
since Jefferson, all the Senators and all the Representa- 
tives since the Fifth Congress, all the Ambassadors and 
Ministers of foreign governments since 1800, all the great 
ofHcers of the army and navy, and many of our most 
eminent scientists have been residents of the District of 
Columbia, and have contributed to its society, always dis- 
tinguished for its refinement and culture, not only the honor 
of their presence, but the riches of their minds. More im- 
portant still, the public men have done their great deeds and 
spoken their great words, making in large measure the his- 
tory of our country, in the District of Columbia. Simply to 
recall the names of men whose biographies are that his- 
tory will give you a true conception of the wealth and great- 
ness of the District of Columbia, which claims them, their 
speeches and their actions at their best as its own. Each 
of them is claimed by some State, possibly as its proudest 
boast, but all of them belong to the District of Columbia, 
where they lived out their greatness in word and in deed. 

The intelligent American, visiting Washington for the 
first time, sees not only that it is beautiful for situation and 
beautiful in itself, with its splendid avenues and streets, its 
parks and trees, its noble buildings and handsome resi- 
dences, but that it is majestic and impressive in its memo- 
ries and associations. He sees it peopled with our leaders 
in the century whose progress this Exposition celebrates. 
In the Executive Mansion, in the Capitol, on Pennsylvania 
avenue, he walks in the footprints of the greatest men we 
have known, and he sees at every turn reminders of their 
lives and their work. The Washington Monument, tower- 
ing above all similar structures in the world, is a symbol, 
not only of the great and pure founder's life, but of the life 
of the city which he founded, in its greatness and simplicity, 
in its high aspirations and in its separation from mercenary 
considerations. We need no Westminster Abbey while we 
have Washington to preserve to us that which cannot be 



22 

wrought into marble or bronze, the very spirit of the best that 
was in our statesmen and heroes, and in performing this high 
office it rises in simple grandeur above the] marts of the 
money-makers and the gatherings of the factories. 

From the windows of the Washington Monument, 500 feet 
above the ground, and almost in the center of the original 
District of Columbia, one can survey almost its entire ex- 
tent without a glass. It is a small State, though not so small 
as Athens or as Rome. It is smaller than any other politi- 
cal division of the United States, although it has more popu- 
lation than six of the States — Delaware, Idaho," Montana, 
Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada, and than any of the Territor- 
ies. It is not rich in money, as riches go to-day, though it 
is not poor, as riches went but yesterday. But it is wealthy 
in the common wealth of greatness, intellectual and spiritual, 
in good government, good society, outward beauty and in- 
ward grace, noble men and noble memories and a glorious 
history. It stands supreme, far above the terrible waves of 
materialism, for intellectual and spiritual achievement, for 
high thinking and fine living, and for those ambitions which 
cannot be satisfied with sordid gains or sensuous pleasures. 
Its voice sounds even above the clamor of the market places 
to remind us of men who were too busy to make money, and 
too patriotic to seek selfish ends, and who gave to their 
country what other men gave to themselves. It tells the 
youth of the country that there is something better than 
selfishness, and summons them with the irresistible call of 
duty to the unselfish life of patriotic endeavor. 

From the calm height of the Washington Monument 
men and things below appear in proper proportion ; they 
are seen through the distance of space, as through the 
distance of time, and with the serene eye of history. True 
and relative values appear. We see, too, how out of all 
the wrongs and all the difficulties and all the dangers of the 
past, even through the mighty agonies of the Civil War, the 
nation has been led constantly into a larger place and to better 



23 

things. Looking westward, up the beautiful reaches of the 
Potomac, curving towards the sunset, we remember that 
George Washington rode there, looking with the eye of the 
first great American expansionist beyond the horizon, beyond 
the Blue Ridge and the Alleghenies, to that promised land 
which he sought to have us occupy, and we remember how, 
step by step, in spite of all obstacles and all discourage- 
ment and all defeats, the idea of Washington has been car- 
ried out until his principles, represented by his flag, have been 
spread over the islands of the sea in the uttermost parts of 
the earth, far beyond his farthest dream. As we look to the 
southward, towards Mount Vernon, where he lived and died, 
and yet still lives, we think how his ideal of republican 
freedom, his example as a revolutionary patriot, brought a 
score of republics into being south of us, and how his teach- 
ings made the United States the protector and the friend of 
everyone of them, without making the United States the 
enemy of any other country. Then, when we turn to the 
eastern windows, looking out to the hills, beyond which lies 
the Atlantic Ocean, we see the influence of Washington and 
his example in the Republic of France, in the republican aspi- 
rations of other European countries, in the democracy which 
is the real government of Great Britain. We see his doctrine 
of peace-keeping by arbitration, first set forth in treaty form 
under his direction by John Jay in the famous treaty with 
England, then denounced and since admired, enthroned 
at the Hague by all the world, and we see that his humane 
and enlightened maxims of government, national and inter- 
national, once innovations are now commonplaces. Pessi- 
mism seems out of place, optimism seems natural, as we re- 
flect in the city of Washington upon the achievements of the 
nation of Washington under the principles of Washington. 
Clouds cover the zenith, rain even falls from their darkness, 
but the sun, shining over Arlington where lie men who died 
that the Republic might live, arches the Capitol with a glori- 



2i 

ous rainbow, beautiful reminder of the covenant of God with 
his people. 

So, as we stand here in this " Rainbow City " looking out 
over our country and the world, facing the new occasions 
which have brought new duties, frankly admitting that with 
unsolved problems at home we must solve even great prob- 
lems abroad, realizing that we have been brought with the 
suddenness and completeness of Providence into leadership 
among the nations, with all the responsibility and all the 
peril, as well as all the privileges and opportunities that it 
involves, we shall not be cowards who falter. We will not 
blink our shortcomings, our difficulties, or our dangers, 
but we will remember the wonderful way in which we have 
been brought through greater trials and tribulations and 
the good which we have been enabled to do for ourselves 
and for all mankind, even in the recent past — in China as 
in the dominions of the sea. We do not shut our eyes to 
the clouds and darkness over us, or even to the rain fall- 
ing upon us, but we see shining through it the rays of the 
sun of righteousness ; we see beyond it the rainbow of the 
promises of God. We hear His voice saying to us, " only 
do right, be strong and of good courage, go forward in the 
way of my commandment." We are persuaded that if we 
obey, in spite of everything that may oppose us, in spite of 
our own faintness and faults, we shall come off conquerors 
and more than conquerors through Him that hath loved us 



BRARY OF CONGRESS 




